


A Cup of Coffee in the Morning

by rangerofdiscord



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Coffee, Sadness, idk why but yanno fics about coffee/tea and i just end up in angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:16:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerofdiscord/pseuds/rangerofdiscord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's funny how one cup of coffee can hold so much significance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup of Coffee in the Morning

Wash never liked coffee. To him, no matter how much sugar and cream he dumped into it he could never get over the bitter taste. When he was younger, it was a vile black liquid his parents drank that made them able to get through the day. During the Project, it was the disgusting shit that made North’s mouth taste worse than other parts of his body. 

Everyone always assumed that he had always liked coffee, after all he had a penchant for being unable to sleep. But it was until recently that he had been able to stomach the vile stuff. Instead, what used to get Agent Washington up in the mornings, and kept him from falling asleep in the Director’s boring classes was sugar. Energy drinks. Junk food. Gross, disgusting, pure sugar shit. With his metabolism and constant training, he never seemed to gain any weight either. It was a win win.

But something had changed within him one day. Something just clicked and next thing he knew he was requesting rations of coffee while working as Recovery One. In the morning’s he’d swing his feet out onto the cold metal floor of Blue Base and stumble his way to the kitchen, half-blindly making himself a pot of the vilest, blackest liquid he could. 

At some point he had just stopped questioning the sudden taste in food. Sometimes that happened to people. It had to be normal.

After a while he stopped wondering what had made the sudden change in him as he sipped his coffee. That was, until one morning in Armonia. 

One of the good things about the city was that he was able to sleep in an actual fucking bed for once. The Capitol Building, where he and the rest of the Reds and Blues slept had some decent furnishings. They were better than the cold, metal bunks he was used to at least.

But the best part was waking up each morning, and watching the sun rise up over the horizon, illuminating the ever-busy military city. Each morning, before going down to get ready to train the soldiers of Chorus, Wash would sit by the window and sip his coffee. 

Rarely did he ever have a guest, but one morning, he heard the door open and someone stumble into the room. Confused -- because none of the crew were ever up before 7a -- he glanced over and saw Carolina staring down at the coffee pot. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face, but from his point of view it looked like she had literally just gotten out of bed. Her red hair was a tangled mess, and the shirt she wore was wrinkled, as though she had slept in it.

She didn’t acknowledge his presence at first, instead choosing to make herself a cup of coffee, with cream and sugar. Wash had never seen her up this late before. Generally she was the last to go to sleep, and the first to wake up. Hell, he was lucky if he saw her at all anymore, she was always being sent off on missions while he stayed behind, training. 

He glanced away as she turned, walking over to him while sipping her coffee. “You made this?” She asked in a hoarse voice that confirmed his suspicions, she had just woken up. 

“I always make coffee first thing in the morning.” He said with a shrug, watching as she raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Since when?” 

Frowning, he toyed with his cup of coffee, blue eyes flashing down to avoid looking at her. “Dunno. After the Project kinda fell apart, I suppose.” 

“Interesting.” Taking another sip, she sighed out and relaxed a bit, looking out over the city. “‘Cause I clearly remember you getting into fights with York over how horrible coffee is. You called it the plague of the galaxy, or something.” 

“Times change.” The comment about York made his heart pang, made him think about how the other man should be sitting across from him, by Carolina, teasing him about his sudden love of coffee. 

“My father used to hate coffee too. Least that’s what a family friend told me.” She said softly, and when Wash looked up, her eyes had taken on a weird sort of look. A mix of hardness and fondness, as though she was struggling to stop herself from feeling some form of affection towards the man. 

A memory flashed in the back of his mind, unbidden and not his. A flicker. 

“But my mom loved it. She always had to have some in the morning or else she’d be impossible to deal with all day. Not that she was any easier to deal with when she had coffee.” A ghost of a smile on her lips. “And my father would complain every morning, ‘cause she always--”

“Took it black.” Wash murmured, then ran a hand over his face. His eyes closed briefly, the memory had come up again. He was such a fucking fool, not realizing why it was he had started liking coffee after the Project fell apart. After Epsilon. “And when she died, he started drinking it black in memory of her. A cup every morning.”

When he opened his eyes, it wasn’t just Carolina watching him now. Epsilon had flickered to life on her shoulder, and he could swear that for an AI with a helmet on, he was looking at him with pity. “Yeah. And at some point I guess he must have started liking it too.” Her eyes flickered briefly to the cup of black liquid in his hands.

One part of Wash wanted to throw the cup out, smash it against the ground and watch it shatter. But instead he just took another sip. Slowly. Let the taste hit his tastebuds, and he savored it for a second. A part of him had forgotten, this was always how York and North’s mouths tasted. It was the vile liquid Maine would drink silently, his eyes teasing Wash as he downed the cup. It was the drink that Connie and South would bicker over, who’s way of drinking it was correct, who’s cup tasted better. It was a reminder.

A cup each morning for Allison. That had been Leonard Church’s way of silently mourning the woman he loved. So one cup each morning would be how Wash silently mourned his friends, his family, and the people he loved that he had lost. 

The coffee somehow tasted sweeter after that day.


End file.
